Ella was made redundant from her compliance job at a big City firm last year, almost straight after she had returned from maternity leave. She felt like she had been sidelined by a male colleague before beginning her leave and that the situation was worse when she came back. Ella says her male colleague tried to boss her around, despite not being her manager, aggressively muscling in on big projects, taking credit for her work and talking over her in meetings.

“He did everything he could to discredit and bully me,” Ella said. “You get to a certain level [in finance companies] and women just disappear. I can’t imagine I’m the only woman who has gone through that.”